#FreeDailyReadingFix - Wild Child 1, Part 10
Chapter 1.12
“I’m only going to ask you this one more time,
son,” Brawn said. “Who cut up your
friend?”
Kyle was sitting in a chair in his living
room, facing the two government men, who sat side by side on the couch. His father sat off to one side on an ottoman,
leaning forward, watching Kyle intently.
“I told you,” Kyle said wearily. “She got hit by a speedboat.”
Brawn looked over at Brains, shaking his
head. “And then she swam down to the
bottom, went into the cave, fixed herself up with the magic water, and swam
back to the boat.”
“That’s right,” Kyle said flatly.
Brawn let out a frustrated sigh and looked
over at Kyle Senior. “Did you raise your
son to fabricate whoppers like this, professor?”
“That’s enough,” Brains said. He looked at Kyle Senior respectfully. “I apologize, sir. You have to understand, this is a stressful
situation for both of us. There’s a
great deal at stake here.”
Kyle Senior gave him a slight nod, but
regarded Brawn coolly.
Brains looked back at Kyle. “I give you my word. We will give you both round-the-clock
protection until we catch whoever it is.
You have nothing to fear.”
“I’m telling you the truth,” Kyle said. “There’s no one to catch. Why won’t you believe me?”
Brains studied Kyle’s face. “Whoever it is, they’ve scared the living
hell out of you, that’s for sure. Is it
somebody from a foreign country? A
terrorist? Who?”
“It’s NOBODY!” Kyle shouted.
Brawn leaped off the couch. “Then why won’t you tell us where the water
IS, you little punk!”
“Don’t you yell at my son like that!” Kyle
Senior said, jumping up from the ottoman.
“Hold it, hold it,” Brains said, waving his
hands in the air. “This is getting us
nowhere. Both of you just plant your
asses back in those cushions and calm down.”
He pointed at Brawn. “And if you
can’t act like a professional, I’m going to report you and have a replacement
brought in. Is that clear?”
Brawn just looked at the floor, a surly
expression on his all-American face.
Brains spoke slowly and carefully. “Kyle, even though my hot-headed associate
here has a little trouble expressing himself in a diplomatic manner, he does
have a point. If this far-fetched story
you’re telling us is indeed true, then why won’t you tell us the location of
the spring?”
Kyle said nothing, trying to organize his
thoughts.
“Answer the man, son,” his dad said.
“All right,” Kyle said irritably. “I’ll tell you why. If I show you where the spring is, I’m afraid
you won’t let Brie have access to it any more, and she’ll die.”
Kyle’s father shook his head and stood up, as
if he couldn’t bear to listen to any more.
He walked over to the window and gazed out at the front lawn.
As if talking to a small child, Brains said
to Kyle, “Well, what if I promise to see that she gets as much of it as she
wants?”
Kyle felt a twinge of hope. Maybe the man would keep his word. “You’ll let her drink as much as she
wants? Let her bathe her wounds in it?”
Brains glanced over at Kyle’s father, who was
still shaking his head. “If she agrees
to receive medical help. After she’s
recovered, if she still wants to drink it, we’ll let her have as much as...”
“Why can’t her mother just sign for her?”
Kyle’s father broke in.
“Because the girl is eighteen years old,”
Brains answered patiently. “Not that her
mother is in any condition right now to sign anything, anyway.”
Kyle Senior rolled his eyes and looked back
out the window. “What a family.”
“Son,” Brains said to Kyle, “I give you my
word. After she’s recovered, she can
drink as much of that water as she wants to.”
Kyle wanted to believe him. “Do you have a piece of paper?” he asked.
Brawn stepped forward, smiling for the first
time since Kyle had met him. “We can do
better than that—we have a satellite map of the whole lake.”
Chapter 1.13
Kyle pulled into the parking lot of the
Veteran’s Administration Hospital, where they had taken Briana. As he got out of his jeep, he noticed four
big Army helicopters flying along the horizon, in the direction of the lake.
They don’t waste any time, Kyle thought.
When he went inside the hospital, no one at
the front desk could find any record of a Briana Fox having been admitted. Just as Kyle was beginning to get angry, a
tall man in a gray pin-striped suit walked up.
Kyle followed him; they took the elevator up
to the third floor. He led Kyle past an MP
who was sitting at a desk in the hallway and into an empty waiting area.
“Wait here,” the man said simply, and left.
The room was stark—no magazines, no ash
trays, nothing—only a few flimsy-looking plastic chairs.
After a minute or so, the door opened
again. Brains entered the room. His face was expressionless. He sat down in a seat directly across from
Kyle and sighed.
“She still won’t sign the papers.”
Kyle wasn’t surprised. “You told her about our agreement?”
“Didn’t make any difference. She still won’t consent to treatment.” He shook his head sadly. “She’s making a big mistake, son. She needs those cuts sewn up. They’re not going to heal properly without
stitches.”
Kyle nodded, but he knew that it would take a
lot more than a few stitches to get her back to normal. They didn’t know the extent of her
wounds. But why would they? They didn’t know that she had ingested some
strange healing substance that was wearing off and causing the injuries to
steadily worsen. Well, maybe they knew
it, but they still didn’t believe it.
“Maybe if you talked to her,” Brains said, “she’d
see reason.”
Kyle watched the man for a moment, anger
slowly welling up inside him. “You can
cut the dramatic act. I don’t buy it.”
Brains’ eyebrows shot up in surprise. “Excuse me?”
“You don’t give a damn about her. All you care about is having a healthy warm
body to use as a guinea pig to see what effects the water might have on it.”
Brains regarded him coldly. “You’re wrong about that. We’re interested in any applications this new
isotope might have, positive or negative.”
“Really?” Kyle said, glancing around the
room. “Then how come you locked her up
in this army hospital? Why isn’t she
over at University Hospital, where all the high-powered research goes on?”
“Because we can arrange for better protection
here.”
“Protection?”
Kyle couldn’t help laughing. “Protection
from what? Nobody’s worked up about this
water but you guys.”
Brains eyed Kyle knowingly. “And whoever cut her up.” He leaned forward and lowered his voice. “Have they paid you off to keep quiet, or
what?”
Kyle shook his head and got up. “Where is she? I want to see her.”
Chapter 1.14
The MP opened the door and Kyle stepped into
the room. He found Briana sitting up in
bed, the covers pulled tightly around her neck.
She looked pale and very tense, but relaxed when she saw Kyle’s
face. He smiled at her.
He turned back to Brains and the MP, who were
both standing in the doorway, watching him.
“Can we have a little privacy?”
“It’s all right,” Brains said. They left and pulled the door shut.
Kyle turned back to Briana. “You’re looking better,” he said. He leaned over and kissed her on the
forehead.
He looked around the room, checking for a
tiny video camera, but didn’t see one.
But there was probably a microphone hidden somewhere. On the table beside her was a clipboard,
thick with release forms. There was a
ballpoint pen sitting on top of it, tip extended.
“Ready and waiting,” Briana said, eyeing it coldly.
Kyle pulled up a chair and sat down. They looked at each other for a moment, and
then her face became cloudy. “I’m mad at
you.”
Kyle picked up the clipboard. “I figured that.” He thumbed through the forms. There were a few that were marked “U.S. Army”
in the back with titles like “EXPERIMENTAL SIDE-EFFECTS DISCLAIMER” and “OFFSPRING
DEFORMITY RELEASE.” On the bottom was a
form titled “PERMISSION FOR TRANSFER TO WALTER REED ARMY HOSPITAL.” He wondered if she had read them all.
“I had no choice, Brie,” he said, looking
back at her. “I had to tell them where
the spring was.” Making small, stealthy
movements that he hoped wouldn’t be caught by a camera, he picked up the pen
and wrote in the margin of the top form, I
didn’t tell them where it really was.
Don’t say a word—the room might be bugged. Just play along.
“You really have to sign these forms,” he
said, holding the clipboard out so she could see what he had written.
“I’m not going to sign...” Her voice faded momentarily as she read the
message. “...those forms, Kyle.”
“Why are you so stubborn?” he said, as he
scratched out another message. He thrust
the clip board at her. “You have to
sign, Brie!”
I
have a plan to get you out of here, he had written.
She nodded, then looked like she didn’t know
what to say. “I want the water!” she
blurted out. It sounded melodramatic,
even to Kyle.
“Well, you have to sign these forms to get
it.” He looked back at the clipboard and
touched the pen to the paper, quickly writing:
Say that you have to talk with Sister Mary
Louise before you decide.
Briana bit her thumbnail. “I really need to talk to Sister Mary Louise,
before I decide,” she said, sounding even more melodramatic than she had
before.
She was no actress—Kyle knew he had to wrap
this up quickly.
“Do you want me to get Sister Mary Louise for
you?” Kyle said.
“All right,” he said. He got up and kissed her again. He slipped the release form he had written
the message on into his pocket and put the clipboard and pen back down.
Opening the door, he smiled briefly at the MP
and saw Brains emerging from a door down the hall. They both went back out into the waiting
area.
“She wants to talk to a nun first.”
“A nun?” he said, sounding surprised.
“Yeah.
She’s kind of religious. She was
raised Catholic.”
“Oh,” Brains said. If he had been eavesdropping, he was doing a
good acting job. “What nun?”
“Sister Mary Louise. She’s Brie’s half-cousin, or something. They’re real close.”
“At a convent downtown.” Kyle paused.
“I can go there now and get her, if you want me to.”
Brains glanced at his watch. For an instant, Kyle thought he saw a flicker
of suspicion cross the man’s middle-aged face.
“Yes,” he said, “that would be helpful.
I’ve got a lot of things to do.”
Yeah, Kyle thought. Like maybe taking a little run over to the
lake to see how your scuba-diving operation is coming along.
Brains turned to the MP “He’ll be back with a nun, Sister...” He turned back toward Kyle. “What was her name?”
“Mary Louise,” the MP answered.
“Right.
She has my permission to see the girl.”
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